


take me when you go

by flythroughflames



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The 100 (TV), The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Childbirth, F/M, Minor Character Death, Sexual Harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 05:27:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3966088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flythroughflames/pseuds/flythroughflames
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a perfect world, she’d have him come with her. Fall down to Earth together in the drop ship, go back home together with Prim. Survive with him, living on the land like humans were supposed to. But she knows that’s not possible.</p><p>Katniss and Peeta in the world of ‘The 100’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take me when you go

Katniss is nearly seven years old when she begins to notice the changes with her mother.

Her mother’s been getting sick in the mornings. Katniss can hear her in the tiny bathroom through the thin walls of their compartment, vomiting violently into the toilet before cleaning up and coming back to get Katniss ready for school.

When Katniss asks her what’s wrong, though, Mama just waves her off.

“I’m fine, darling,” she smiles, brushing a lock of sweaty blonde hair off her brow. “Something I ate seems to have disagreed with me, that’s all.”

Katniss wants to point out that what she’s been told doesn’t make sense; Mama’s been throwing up nearly every day for for the last few weeks, but she doesn’t say anything.

“Two braids today or one?” Mama asks.

“Two,” Katniss replies. Her mother sets to work, combing her nimble fingers through Katniss’s thick black hair. This is Katniss’s favorite part of the day, when her mother does her hair before walking Katniss to her class. She leans into her mother’s touch as she plaits her hair into twin ropes, and stays silent until it’s time to leave.

—

The sickness in the morning stops soon enough, but something even more curious happens to Katniss’s mother. Mama is a slight, thin woman, but Katniss begins to see her tummy distending through her tunics. They haven’t had extra rations, so Katniss isn’t sure how she’s been gaining weight.

But as the months go on, it becomes clear what’s going on.

Mama’s stomach swells impossibly big, so big that she can’t fit into her normal clothes anymore. She looks like Mrs. Simmons, one of the ladies who distributes rations, did before she had a baby.

But that’s impossible. Even though she’s young, Katniss knows that each family is only allowed one child. Having more than one child is against the rules, and that bad things happen to people who break the rules on the Ark.

The changes with her mom continue, though. She doesn’t walk Katniss to her classroom anymore, telling her that she’s a big girl now, and can walk with Leevy from the compartment next door. She begins to wear old dresses that Katniss doesn’t remember her owning before. She makes Katniss answer the door when it’s time for surprise inspections, and sits on the threadbare couch, a blanket crowded over her middle while the guard sweep through their little compartment.

“What’s going on, Mama?” Katniss asks one day as the guard file out of their door, moving onto their next inspection.

“Everything’s fine, Katniss,” comes the response, trained and measured as always. “I’m fine.” She offers Katniss a smile, which she weakly accepts. Mama looks exhausted, the circles under her blue eyes even more pronounced under the stark, artificial halogen lights of their compartment, and despite her bigger frame, her cheeks are sunken in, making her face look even sharper than normal.

Mama begins to ask about what she learned in class today, and Katniss lets herself get distracted for a moment.

Because even though her mother tries to assure her that everything’s okay, the sinking feeling in her gut tells her that something is terribly wrong.

—

It happens a few weeks after Katniss turns seven.

Her mom shakes her awake in the middle of the night, and Katniss immediately knows something is wrong. Mama’s hands and face are clammy and sweaty, her pale blue eyes looking frantic.

“What’s wrong?” Katniss launches herself out of the tiny bed, crowding over to her mother fearfully.

“Katniss,” Mama wheezes. “I need you to be very brave for me right now, okay sweetheart? I need your help.”

She guides Katniss to the living space, and sits up against the wall, her breathing coming in rapid pants. A stack of towels and linens sit to her left, along with a jug of water, a pot, and their small hot plate.

She tasks Katniss with heating the water on the hot plate, something she’s never been allowed to do before. Katniss obeys, and flickers her eyes between the boiling water and her mother. Her eyes are wide and frightened, a gasp escaping with every pained moan that bubbles from Mama’s lips.

Mama cries out sharply, and Katniss whimpers, tears welling up in her grey eyes.

“I-I’m going to get help,” Katniss’s voice wobbles. She scrambles to her little feet, woozy from the panic and fear building in her, but her mother promptly yanks her back down to the floor.

“No help.” She looks at Katniss sternly. “Nobody is to know what’s going on. Do you understand me?”

Her voice is deadly calm, strong and clear despite the obvious pain she’s in. Katniss is scared; she wants to send for help more than anything, but in doing so, something terrible could happen. Something that could very well be worse than what’s happening to her mom right now.

“Do you understand me?” her mother repeats. Her short fingernails dig into Katniss’s little forearm. Her eyes are wild and wide, piercing Katniss with their gaze, and Katniss nods, unable to find her voice.

That seems to satisfy her. She releases Katniss’s arm, and leans back into the wall, sipping water as she tries to regulate her breathing.

The rest doesn’t take very long.

For Katniss, it seems to happen in the blink of an eye. Sweat beads at her mother’s forehead, her face flushed red with exertion. Her grunts and moans of pain reach a dull roar, and Katniss has half a mind to ignore her mother’s warnings and run out the door to fetch some help.

But before she can, it’s over.

Squalling and bloody, tiny and wrinkled, laying on the linens placed between her mother’s legs, there it is.

“A baby,” Katniss whispers. Her mother nods exhaustedly, cleaning the squawking child delicately with a free towel.

“A baby,” Mama repeats tiredly, the ghost of a smile on her lips. “Your sister.”

—

Katniss doesn’t grow up with a lot of friends. Her quiet disposition doesn’t do much for the other children looking for partners in crime, people to make trouble with. She sits alone when it’s time for lunch more often than not—sometimes Madge Undersee, a councilman’s daughter, joins her—but it doesn’t bother her.

Because when she goes back home to her compartment each afternoon, she’s able to spend time with her very best friend.

Prim is Katniss’s world. She loves her little sister more than anything; the confinement to their compartment does nothing to hinder Prim’s blossoming into a beautiful, smart young lady. She takes after their mother, all fair skin and blue eyes and blonde hair, unlike Katniss’s own dark hair, olive skin, and slate eyes. But even so, it’s obvious they’re sisters.

Katniss hates when she has to leave Prim in the mornings for school. There’s nothing more she wants than for Prim to be able to leave their compartment, make friends, go to school. Be free.

She knows why Prim has to hide at home, why she isn’t allowed to exist. The life support structures on the Ark are fragile. Their system is a delicate one; overpopulation could have massive repercussions on the Ark’s ability to maintain its habitability for its denizens.

She still hates it, though.

—

Katniss is fourteen years old when learns how her mother’s been made aware of compartment inspections in advance. Inspections happen twice a month, where members of the guard go through each individual family compartment on the Ark to make sure that nothing is amiss.

The inspections are meant to be unscheduled, surprises essentially, but for some reason, their mother always knows when it’s time to hide Prim away under the floorboard, silent as a mouse, before the Inspectors barge in.

She’s sitting at the table one day, pretending to work on her Life Skills homework when Inspector Cray, the guard assigned to their sector, comes in. Mom greets the inspector at the door, pleasant and charming as always, offering him water and snacks, even though their rations are running low. He declines—as always—and begins the inspection, sweeping through the compartment, opening closets, looking under beds, and peering in cupboards.

The inspection lasts no more than ten, fifteen minutes, before its time for the inspectors to move onto the next family. Katniss glances up from her worksheet just before they leave, but what she sees makes her wish she never looked up.

Cray’s gloved hands ghost over her mom’s backside, and he grunts something into the crook of her neck. Mom whispers something back, and giggles prettily, before he lets her go and files out of the compartment.

The door swishes shut, and Mom lets out the breath she’s been holding in. Katniss stares at her mother, revulsion and disgust swirling through her. Cray’s perversions are a poorly kept secret, even she’s heard whisperings of how twisted he can be, and she can’t believe her mom would touch him for any reason.

“Him? Is he your boyfriend or something?” Katniss deadpans, staring at her mom coldly. Her mother sighs sadly and straightens out her clothes. “Katniss, it’s for Prim. I do what I can to keep her safe.”

The ugly realization of why her mom had even entertained the thought of touching Cray sinks in, and Katniss is torn between wanting to throw up and crying for her mother.

But before she can do or say anything, her mom bends down to open the hatch, letting Prim back up. Prim’s a little sad and quiet when she comes up; Katniss knows how much she hates being locked in the gloomy, dank cupboard under their floorboards.

“Come on, Duckie,” Katniss says lightly, using the nickname she’d coined for Prim several years prior and shaking away errant thoughts of what she just witnessed. “Draw me something. I need a reward for finishing my homework, right?” she teases.

Prim’s giggles help her forget, if only for a moment.

—

Cray’s inspections are full of poorly hidden groping and lecherous comments that Katniss knows he thinks she can’t hear. She tries to ignore him, but it’s easier said than done.

She begins to catch her mother coming home in the middle of the night, creeping through the door when she thinks Katniss and Prim are asleep. The late night visits become a regular occurrence, sometimes multiple nights per week. Katniss wonders if they have those to thank for the influx of rations they’ve had lately.

Prim grows up, lengthening, developing, and Katniss can’t believe the mature, beautiful girl she sees now is the same person as the skinny little girl she once knew. As Prim gets older, she begins to spend longer stretches of time alone, while their mother is out delivering what she’s laundered and Katniss working in the Mecha station, having begun that job soon after she finished her schooling. She’s responsible, always hiding out of sight when Mom tells her an inspection is coming.

For awhile, everything is okay.

They’re sitting around the table, a few weeks after Prim’s twelfth birthday. Katniss and Prim are playing a card game while their mother mends a dress. Prim wins for the third time in a row, teasing Katniss that she’s being easy and letting her win. Katniss laughs, a retort at her lips, but knocking on the front door silences her before she can say anything.  
For a moment, no one moves a muscle. No one dares to even breathe.

Katniss is the first to gain her voice, while their mother and Prim remain shell-shocked and deadly quiet.

“J-just a minute!” she calls out, desperately hoping she sounds normal. She gestures wildly towards Prim, slapping the cards out of her hand and ushering her to the hatch in the floor.

“Take your time,” a kind voice replies through the door, and Katniss pauses for a moment, confused. The voice is unfamiliar; deep and clear, but also friendly. Definitely not Cray’s voice.

She shakes her head, removing herself from the straying thoughts and questions whipping through her mind. She all but forces Prim down the hatch, locking the door and throwing the simple rug over the entrance to obscure it further.

She straightens herself, willing her racing heart to slow down, and quickly scans the room to make sure that nothing’s amiss before opening the door.

A man smiles back at her, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. He’s young, perhaps only three or four years older than her nineteen year old self. The guardsman’s uniform, with their bulky vests and belts, do nothing to hide his stocky, broad build. His blond hair curls under his cap. The name ‘Mellark’ is printed in block letters on the badge fixed to the front of his vest. She doesn’t recognize the name, and she hasn’t ever seen him before. She wants to ask him a million different questions, but can only smile back weakly.

“Evening,” he responds kindly. “Inspection time.”

He doesn’t immediately barge in like Cray normally does, but waits for her to invite him in.

“Oh,” she says dumbly, before stepping aside to allow him in.

“Thanks,” he quips, walking in.

“Hello,” her mother offers, standing up from the couch. She strides over to the guard, proffering her hand out for him to shake. “Senna Everdeen”, says, introducing herself as if they’re having a friendly, neighborly chat.

“Peeta Mellark,” he responds, shaking her mother’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am. I’ll be performing the inspections from now on.”

Her mother smiles sweetly, before giving Katniss a pointed look to follow her lead. The last thing she wants to do is exchange pleasantries this man, but she does anyway.

“And I’m Katniss,” she says flatly, offering him her hand as well. He smiles at her as well, a genuine, kind smile before he takes her hand in his gloved one.

“Nice to meet you too, Katniss,” he responds, and despite it all, the terror and uncertainty of the situation, she can’t help but crack a smile back.

She lets his hand go, and he begins the inspection, sweeping through the back rooms of the compartment.

“Where’s Inspector Cray?” Katniss blurts as he pokes through a closet, scanning for anything out of place.

“Ah,” he falters, turning fully towards them. “You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?” her mother asks. Her voice is soft and disinterested so as to not elicit any questions, but Katniss can hear the undercurrent of panic laced in her words.

“Um,” Peeta says, fidgeting a bit. “Inspector Cray was found with…contraband, in his compartment.”

They’re silent for a moment while the implication of his words sink in. Found with contraband. Found with something illegal. Broke the law, on the Ark. Where every crime, regardless of magnitude or severity, is immediately punishable by death for those over the age of eighteen. A swift, brutal execution, where the offender is sucked out off the Ark and into the infinite, black abyss around them.

“He was floated this morning,” Peeta adds quietly, and at his words, Katniss hears the sharp intake of breath from her mother, and she knows they’re thinking the same thing. They can’t go back to surprise inspections, not anymore. But obviously, they have no choice in the matter.

“How unfortunate,” her mother tuts weakly, shaking her head.

“Yes,” Peeta agrees. “Inspector Cray…he wasn’t a good guy, really, but still.”

Neither Katniss or her mother know how to respond to him. Peeta’s cheeks flush, as if he’s just realized what he’s said. He clamps his mouth shut, resuming the inspection as quickly as he can.

“Okay,” he says after he’s gone through the last cupboard. “Everything looks good to me.”

Katniss and her mother nod simultaneously, letting out twin breaths of relief. “Thank you, Inspector Mellark,” her mother breathes, and he smiles in return.  
“Please, just Peeta is fine.”

Her mother nods. “Peeta, then.”

“It was nice to meet you both,” he replies, walking over to the front door. “Til next time, yeah?”

Katniss responds before her mother can. “Til next time,” she echoes.

The compartment door closes with a swish, and Katniss lets out the massive breath she didn’t know she was holding in.

“What do we do now?” she asks her mother, her voice small, scared. Sounding so much younger than she is. The helplessness gnaws at her, and she feels like she did when Prim was being born, all those years ago.

“We’ll manage,” her mother says firmly, locking the door before striding over to the couch and sinking down carefully.

“We’ll manage.”

Katniss sits heavily on the rickety chair she was in, drawing her legs up to the seat of the chair, staring at the table.

It’s only then that she realizes that Prim’s drinking glass and hand of cards, sitting right next to her own.

—

As it turns out, Katniss sees Peeta Mellark soon after his first inspection.

She’s at work, tinkering with a broken radio, when she hears the telltale swish of the door opening. She frowns, wondering if Gale Hawthorne, the other person on her shift, forgot something before he took his break, but it isn’t him.

Peeta Mellark stands before her in his civilian clothes, smiling brightly at her. She just stares at him.

“Hi,” he greets, stepping through the door frame and into the main workspace. He looks more comfortable in his regular clothes as opposed to the guard uniform. His shoulders still look impossibly broad and muscled, even without the shoulderpads and vest. But it’s not as if she’s looking, or anything.

“What are you doing here?” she asks immediately, eyeing him with distrust.

If she’s being rude, he doesn’t comment on it. “My gun’s jammed,” he says lightly, lifting his shirt a bit to pat the holster at his waist. If it was anyone else, she would think it was a power play, a means of intimidating her. But his and face are clear of anything malignant, and she grudgingly believes that he’s being truthful and genuine.

That doesn’t mean she wants to help him.

“Take it to the Armory,” she replies plainly, turning back to the parts in her hands. She knows that he knows that they don’t handle weapons in Mecha.

“They’re not open today,” he volleys back, rocking back on his heels, hands clasped behind his back. “I just came from there.”

She looks at him out of the corner of her eye as she twists a screw into place, otherwise ignoring. He takes this as an invitation to continue.

“I have rounds tonight, and I’ve been meaning to get this fixed for a while now,” he prattles on, looking at the various tools and devices that litter the room. “And I don’t want to have to wait a long time, it’s been long enough…”

He continues talking, about what she isn’t exactly sure, nor does she care. The mention of his inspection rounds grabs her attention. They’re just about due for the second inspection of the month, and now she knows when it’s scheduled for.

“Let me see it,” she says brusquely, palm outstretched to receive the gun. He smiles widely, before unclipping it from his belt and hands it over. His fingers brush her palm during the exchange, but she pretends not to notice.

“Thanks,” he says sincerely. “I appreciate it.”

“No problem,” she responds, and sets to work as he drums his fingers on the metal work table. She looks at his profile through her eyelashes as she removes the magazine. Peeta smiles lightly again, and she rolls her eyes, albeit in a joking manner.

If being friends with Peeta Mellark is going to help keep her sister safe, then she’ll do it, no questions asked.

But even so, she thinks, as he begins to make easy conversation with her, it probably won’t be that bad.

—

For someone who has few friends out of choice, Katniss gets on with Peeta rather well.

He begins to drop by Mecha while she’s working quite often, bringing in broken devices, appliances, and other knickknacks for her to fix, always with the excuse that he can’t find anyone else. And after every visit, he tells her that he’ll either see her later or that he’ll see her later tonight, thus signifying to her when she should hide Prim. Katniss knows he’s doing it subconsciously, but she doesn’t care. As long as Prim stays safe. After the third broken toaster, she teases him, in a voice she didn’t know she had, asking if he’s breaking the things on purpose.

“You got me,” he sighs dramatically, covering his face with his hands. She rolls her eyes, giggling, before freezing. She never giggles. At least with people who aren’t Prim.

“Was I that obvious?”

“Of course,” she replies, playing along. “I see right through you, Mellark.”

“Ah, can you blame me though?” he asks, propping his feet up on the workstation before she swats them away. “Most guys would do much worse to spend time with a pretty girl.”

She freezes, the screwdriver going slack in her hands. What did he just say?

“Um, I’m sorry,” he frets, cheeks reddening. “I didn’t mean to say that—well not that I don’t think you’re pretty, because you are, you’re gorgeous. I just,” he stops abruptly, sighing. “Did I just make things weird?”

“Kind of,” she starts. She’s been the target of the occasional leer from a man, but they never really bothered her because she never cared about them. But that’s not why what he’s said makes her feel strange. It feels weird, because despite Peeta being a member of the inspection guard, someone who could literally turn her life upside down in the worst way, she almost considers him a friend. And, if she’s being honest, she likes the way he looks, too. More than just a little bit.

“But it’s alright,” she finishes, looking at him fully, trying to convey to him that it’s okay. That she likes it.

He stares at her for a moment, before realizing what she means. “Yeah?” he asks, the corners of his mouth tugging up.

She nods. “Yeah.”

—

“We can’t,” Katniss gasps against his lips. The metal of the compartment door is digging into her back, but she doesn’t mind. Peeta has her pinned to the door, his bulky guard’s vest pressing into her front. He breaks their kiss, nipping at her bottom lip, only to drag his mouth down her neck and jaw.

“Okay,” Peeta replies, only to press another firm, heady kiss against her mouth. She swats at him playfully, gently pushing him off of her and straightening her clothes.

“Do your job,” she mock reprimands, and he does a funny salute in response.

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am,” he jokes, before beginning the inspection.

It didn’t take long for their friendship to delve into something deeper. Peeta’s confession jumpstarted things between them, and Katniss has to admit to herself that she felt genuine, real feelings towards him. What began as a friendship only to keep her sister safe turned into something very different for her. Different, but welcome, even if she couldn’t exactly put a finger on what it was.

All she knows was that she likes being around Peeta. She likes talking with him, kissing him. He’s the first man, only man, she’s ever kissed, and by now, she feels like she knows his lips better than her own. It didn’t take long for them to move further from kisses, for she’d begun to crave more. Going down that road with him was something that might’ve scared her in the past, but now, being with him feels as natural as breathing.

“Okay,” Peeta says suddenly, breaking her out of her thoughts. “All done.”

He walks over to her, wrapping an arm around her waist, pulling her to him. They’re silent, just enjoying the feel of one another, before he speaks again.

“Can I see you later tonight?”

She frowns for a moment, thinking. Her mother’s due home from her deliveries soon, and regardless, she hasn’t spent much time with Prim lately. The extra hours she’s picked up at work to secure enough rations for the three of them have been taking a toll on their quality time, and she knows she should stay home tonight, as much as she wants to be with him.

“Not tonight,” she says, offering no other comments. He doesn’t seem to mind though, he just nods into the crook of her neck. “Tomorrow?”

He pulls back, looking at her with those blue eyes. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and just looks at her. She looks back, and for a second, she sees something on his face. A look she hasn’t seen on him before, different from the look he gives her when they were laughing and joking together, or when she’s straddling him, sinking down onto him.

Something new.

“Tomorrow,” he echoes, and leans forward to kiss her once more before he leaves.

She sighs, turning on her feet to kick the threadbare rug off the hatch, opening the door to let her sister out.

“Come on up, Prim,” she says, and begins to tidy up the main room before their mother comes back home.

Prim climbs out of the hole, and closes the hatch and placing the rug back where it’s meant to be. She stretches and dusts herself off, and looks curiously at her sister before speaking.

“Is he your boyfriend?” she asks without preamble.

Katniss pauses. The same words she asked her mom all those years ago. Of course Prim would be able to hear them; the walls of the compartment are thin and Katniss knows the floors probably aren’t much different.

She knows she can’t lie to her sister, even though this conversation is one she has no desire to have.

“I don’t know,” she sighs, looking at Prim.

“Katniss,” Prim says plainly. “Please don’t tell me you’re doing this for me. He’s not forcing you, is he?” she frets, and Katniss feels her stomach bottoming out. It’s kind of funny, in a twisted sort of way, the way history feels like it’s repeating itself.

“No, no,” Katniss says hurriedly, assuaging her sister’s fears. “It’s not like that.”

Prim looks at her pointedly, and Katniss reluctantly continues.

“I mean, I guess I started being his friend to, you know, figure out when inspections would be,” she begins, and Prim opens her mouth to say something. She quickly continues. “That’s all we were at the beginning. Just friends. He never pushed me to do anything,” she says, blinking back tears she doesn’t want to release. “I-,” she starts, before pausing to gather her bearings. “I started it all. I wanted to be with him.”

Prim thinks for a moment. “Do you love him?” she asks bluntly, but not unkindly.

“I care about him,” Katniss responds. “I care about him a lot. But, I started it for you. To keep you safe.” She’s open and honest, because she could never lie to Prim, but the answer doesn’t seem to satisfy her.

”Oh Katniss,” Prim says sadly, before stepping into her sister’s arms. “I just want you to be happy.”

“You being safe makes me happy, okay? I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you,” Katniss responds, squeezing Prim against her tightly.

The room is silent, still. The sisters hold each other tightly, the only sound in the room their even breathing and the whir of the ventilation.

Prim breaks the silence first. “I love you, Katniss. So much”

Katniss smiles, and presses a kiss into her baby sister’s fine hair. “I love you too, Duck.”

—  
For awhile, things are great. The Everdeens are able to stock enough rations to where Katniss and the girls’ mother don’t have to work as long of hours. Prim seems happier than ever, due to being able to spend more time with her family. Inspections are known well in advance, thanks to Peeta’s hints. And Katniss’s relationship with him seems to strengthen by the day.

But it doesn’t take very long at all for things to completely fall apart.

Two days after Katniss turns twenty, Peeta crashes into the Mecha station. He’s clearly distressed, his eyes wild and blond hair in every direction. A marked difference from how he was when she saw him the other day. He specifically made sure he didn’t have to work, and put off all his obligations until after her birthday.

“I want to spend as much of the day as I can with you,” he’d told her. She scoffed at him then, but she couldn’t deny how happy and pleased she was. She met up with him after the little celebration Prim insisted on. He planned for a whole berth of things to do with her, but she launched herself at him the moment she saw him, dragging him to his bed. If he was put out about her stomping all over his plans, she didn’t seem to notice.

How quickly things change.

She drops her work, rushing over to him with concern and fear.

“What’s wrong?” she demands. Her hands run against his body and face, feeling for any injuries, but he seems physically fine. But clearly, something horrible has happened.

He grasps her face in both hands, his blue eyes boring into her frightened grey ones.

“Katniss,” he hedges, as if he’s trying to figure out the best way to break the news. She clasps his hands in hers, squeezing violently and shaking.

“Just tell me,” she begs. “You’re scaring me.”

He inhales jaggedly, before letting the words spill from his lips.

“They found her,” he says finally. “Your sister.”

—

Her whole body aches from crying. Her throat is hoarse, and her eyes and nose burn. She lays in her narrow bed, Peeta behind her, his strong arm wrapped around her middle. He’s been with her all day, and she knows that if he wasn’t with her now she’d lose it completely.

This morning, everything was fine. Tonight, she’s lost both her mother and her sister in one fell swoop.

Peeta’s inspection rounds had been reassigned without his knowledge. The new inspector, Thread, performed the inspections in Katniss’s sector. A cold man with a reputation for cruelty, he barged into the compartment without preamble, coming across Prim in the sitting room, plain as day. When he demanded to see her identification card and Prim was unable to produce one, things were over.

Their mother, out delivering her laundry, was promptly located, arrested, and executed. Sucked out into the black around their Ark.

Prim was arrested, and placed in the Skybox. The Ark’s juvenile lockup facility, where she’ll stay until she’s eighteen, and will either be freed or killed.

Her crime? Being born.

“Did you know about her?” she asks Peeta quietly. She’s not sure if he’s asleep or not, but she asks anyway.

He’s quiet for a long while, and she thinks he might be sleeping, but responds. “I had a feeling,” he says finally. “I saw extra table settings sometimes, or shoes that I knew were too small for you. But I didn’t know it was your sister.”

She doesn’t respond. She just turns, burrowing her face in his chest, desperately wishing for sleep to take her away from this, if only for a little while.

But even though she lays here, warm and safe, limbs entwined with his and her head on his chest, she’s never felt more alone.

—

She overhears it when she’s in the rations department one day, waiting in line. Two agro-workers, a man and a woman are in front of her, discussing a new development.  
“So it’s happening, eh? Next Thursday, right?” the man asks, and the woman nods, clicking her tongue. “I can’t believe it.”

“Same,” the woman responds. “I can’t agree with it, though. I mean really? Sending 100 kids down as some kind of guinea pig experiment to see if it’s okay for the rest of us? It’s barbaric.”

“They’re criminals,” the man says pointedly, and Katniss desperately hopes they don’t notice her eavesdropping.

“Yes, but they’re still only children,” the woman volleys back.

They bicker for a moment, but Katniss has stopped listening to them. She turns on her heel and runs back to her compartment.

She immediately knows what she has to do.  
—

Peeta knocks the door, and she opens it soon after. She wordlessly lets him into the compartment, ushering him to the thin couch in the main room. He takes a seat, and she sits next to him, their knees touching.

She gathers his hands into hers, squeezing tightly, and opens her mouth to begin, but she can’t seem to find the words.

“Katniss, please,” he rasps. She can hear his voice hitch in his throat, and she feels her heart fall even deeper into the ground. She doesn’t dare look directly in his eyes. It’s cowardly, pathetic even, but she doesn’t know if she can handle what she’ll see in them.

She doesn’t respond. Her eyes are trained on her compartment’s stark gray floor, scuffed and dirty from weeks without washing. Peeta’s warm breath puffs against her face, his proximity to her both comforts her and makes her feel absolutely terrible. Normally, being near Peeta calms her fraying nerves. The synapses in her brain don’t fire as rapidly; there’s no urgency with him. Being with him sets her at ease. When she’s with him, the only things she has to think about are his laugh in her ears. His smile, the sweet, shy one that she knew he didn’t give anyone else. His arms, wrapped around her waist and pressing them together. His lips against hers, raining kisses against every last inch of her.

But now, she’d rather be anywhere else.

He grips her chin suddenly, gentle yet firm, unwielding, forcing her to meet his eyes. They shine brilliantly in the compartment’s dim lighting. His jaw is set; the determined look on his face is only betrayed by the fear reflected in his eyes. “Katniss, I’m begging you please. You can’t do this. You could die; if not down there then here. What if they find out? You’ll be floated.”

“I—.” Her voice catches. Because she knows he’s right. There’s no guarantee that the plan will work. She doesn’t know if she’ll be able to sneak aboard before they bring the 100 prisoners onto the drop ship

“I can’t just do nothing,” she replies weakly. “I have to be with her, I can’t leave her alone.” She swipes at her cheek, brushing away an errant tear. “My sister, my responsibility.”

Peeta doesn’t respond. She cautions a look at him, through her lashes. The distress is evident on his face, and she fills ill. In a perfect world, where his life wouldn’t be on the line, she’d have him come with her. Fall down to Earth together in the drop ship, go back home together with Prim. Survive with him, living on the land like humans were supposed to.

He sniffs, sweeping away the tears that’ve fallen from his eyes, making her heart splinter even further. She wants to take him into her arms, to hold him and kiss him and tell him that everything will be alright. That she won’t try to intentionally leave the Ark with, banished down to an uncertain Earth with her sister.

But she knows she can’t. She knows that she won’t, that it’s impossible for her.

And knowing that makes her feel even worse.

—

Smoky grey air fills the cabin, obscuring the lighting. It’s not terribly noxious, but it’s definitely uncomfortable, and she knows they’ll need to open the drop ship’s door sooner rather than later.

Their velocity is at zero now; everything is still, except for the kids wrestling out of their seat-belts and clamoring for the doors. Katniss hides behind a false wall. She peers out to the main seating area of the ship, and spies Prim sitting in the leftmost corner. Her sister’s face is only marred by a slight wound near her right temple. It’s probably from banging her head against the seat as they crashed down to Earth, but otherwise isn’t very deep.

Most of the kids look to be okay, Katniss thinks as she scans the ship’s occupants. The only injuries seem to be a few superficial wounds, and she’s glad they’re okay for now.

But she knows they’re not out of the woods just yet.

A few older boys make for the door, working together to pry it open. It takes a few of them to figure out how to properly turn the dial, but the pressure releases, and bright light fills the ship’s interior.

No one moves. No one immediately falls down to the ground either, convulsing and choking from the radiation they thought might be down here. They’re all still, the only sound coming from the wind rustling outside.

A girl is the first to move. She’s young, probably only a year or so older than Prim. She walks towards the door cautiously, before stepping out the door. A human, stepping out onto the Earth for the first time in three generations.

Katniss can’t see the girl from her vantage point anymore, but the squeal of jubilation she hears the girl emit tells her all she needs to know.

Earth is habitable. They can survive down here.

The kids go wild, launching themselves out of their chairs and clamoring for the ship’s door. Katniss quickly unfastens the seat belt she’s jury-rigged for herself, before hopping out from the wall she had been hiding behind. She scans the crowd for her sister, before quickly spotting her near the mouth of the ship.

Prim files out soon, and Katniss shoves herself in front of others in order to meet her sister.

The moment she steps foot outside, though, she freezes.

Because she feels it. The sun on her face, the wind against her cheek and through her hair. The fresh smell of the trees and shrubbery around them. Real air, she thinks, taking a deep breath.

After 97 years, they’re home. They made it.

A boy behind her bumps into her, jostling her into reality. Katniss shakes her head for a moment, gathering her bearings, and immediately sets to work to find her sister.

It doesn’t take long at all. She finds Prim sitting alone on a log, staring out into the vast forest before them. She immediately wants to throw herself at Prim, gathering her into her arms, but all she can do is weakly say her name. Prim sits up straight, slowly turning around. Her eyes widen enormously and her mouth drops open. Katniss sees her blue eyes filling with tears, and she can feel the telltale sting in her own too.

“Katniss!” Prim screams, scrambling to her feet. Katniss’s feet begin to move of their own volition, carrying her closer and closer to her sister until Prim jumps into Katniss’s outstretched arms.

Prim is sobbing openly, soaking Katniss’s jacket with tears and snot and everything else, but she literally could care less. She’s reunited with her sister, safe and sound. Prim doesn’t ask how or why Katniss made it down with her, and it seems like she doesn’t care at all.

She isn’t sure how long they stand in front of that log, holding each other and crying and laughing, but she doesn’t let go until she hears a man’s voice, deep and clear and twinged with concern and worry, calling her name.

She knows that voice. She thinks she’s dreaming for a second, because it’s not possible. But clear as day, she hears it. Hears Peeta.

And there he is.

He’s wearing his guard’s uniform, cap still securely placed on his head. His blond curls are matted with sweat, pressed against his forehead. He looks disheveled and harried, exhausted too, but otherwise, he seems to be okay.

“Katniss,” he gasps, taking her in. She sees his eyes flit across every inch of her, taking inventory for any potential injuries.

“What are you doing here?” she breathes. She knows she’s dreaming now. She didn’t make it onto the ship, didn’t sneak on and reunite with her sister on the ground. Because it’s not possible for him to be here, at all.

He looks chagrined. “I-I knocked Mitchell out so I could smuggle myself in, I hid in a hatch beneath the seats. There were a few extra seats and cushions and things down there, in case they needed to overload or something, so it wasn’t too uncomfortable…”

He trails off, falling silent. Katniss just stares at him.

“I couldn’t let you go,” he blurts. “I couldn’t let you do this alone.”

It’s then that Katniss realizes that she isn’t dreaming, that she’s firmly entrenched in reality. Peeta risked his job, his life, everything to come down here with her, to make sure she didn’t face the unknown world by herself.

And even though she’s angry, incensed that he acted so foolishly just for her, she’s happy. So, so happy.

She launches herself at him, pushing with the force of their impact and causing them to tumble to the ground. He opens his mouth to say something, but she cuts him off with her lips, kissing him deeply, desperately. She’s not even embarrassed that her baby sister is only two feet away, watching her big sister and some strange man that she doesn’t even know. She never wants to let him go. Never again.

They only break apart when the need to breathe becomes too much. His blue eyes are bright when she pulls away, sparkling with gratitude and happiness and something else. She’s not exactly sure what it is, but she has a funny feeling that he might see the same in her own grey ones.

“Thank you,” she whispers, stroking his cheek lightly, and he kisses her palm in return. She helps him up, brushing the dirt and muck off of their clothes, and finally introduces him to Prim. The first thing Prim does is hug him fiercely, as if she was greeting an old friend. He looks taken aback at first, but smiles, returning her embrace fully.

She watches them interact, blinking back the tears that threaten to let loose again. Because between Peeta and Prim, she won’t have to face anything by herself down here. She’s not alone, and knowing that makes everything okay.


End file.
